


The Luminous Library

by Bitter_As_Wormwood_13



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Gen, I cannot action, I dont even know just... enjoy this, Just an insert book, book 6 1/2, its not shippy or anything, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 14:41:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19231180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitter_As_Wormwood_13/pseuds/Bitter_As_Wormwood_13
Summary: The Baudelaire orphans have a new guardian: Ms Elmira Nettle, a sweet older woman who seems to be more connected to all this than she lets on





	The Luminous Library

  
There are some people in this world who tell you not to worry, even if there is probable cause for it. For instance, if you just realized that you accidentally left your container of liquid nitrogen in the oven, that would be probable cause for worry, even if someone told you not to. Likewise, seeing as the Baudelaires had not seen their kidnapped friends for weeks after finding them at the bottom of a particularly unpleasant elevator shaft at 667 Dark avenue, it was probable cause to ignore Mr. Poe's well-meaning advice.

"Don't worry, Baudelaires. We'll find the Quagmire twins soon." Mr. Poe consoled.

"They're TRIPLETS" the three children replied in unison, from the backseat of the car. Or rather, Violet and Klaus replied that, and Sunny said "Asder DA!" which was her equivalent. Sunny was quite young and at a point in her life when she mostly spoke in incoherent babble.

"Baudelaires, I can't talk to you when you're like this. Don't be indignant. Indignant means-"

"We KNOW what indignant means." Klaus said irritably. "What I REALLY wish you'd tell me is who we're going to go live with. A new boarding school, another place to work, with another VILLAIN?"

"Klaus!" Violet whispered, giving him a little jab in the shoulder with her elbow.

"No no, that IS a legitimate concern. Unfortunately, you've killed off any family members who might want to adopt you. But I feel like you're going to like your new guardian!" Mr Poe said.

"Erko" Sunny grunted, which, from what I can discern, means "That's debatable"

"Yes, erko indeed, Sunny'" Mr Poe said, absent-mindedly. "Your new guardians name is Elmira Nettle. She lives in the Bogus Bog. She is not as inventive as you, Violet, but she does have some household contraptions. Klaus, I know that she has QUITE the large library. And Sunny, while I'm doubtful that she likes biting as much as you, she does have a fondness for cooking."

"Well, she sounds wonderful." Violet said.

The Baudelaires sat in silence for the rest of the car trip, until they got to Bogus Bog. Stepping out onto the marshy land, they looked at their new guardian who was sitting on a rocking chair, in the faint porch light.

"Come in, children" the aging woman said, rising from her swaying seat. The three nervous children said goodbye to the incompetent banker, and stepped inside of their new home

Elmira Nettle led the kids up the steps to their new home, which was on stilts in the soft ground. As Klaus was trying to navigate the rotting wood and misplaced nails he got a lingering sense of dread. He had read a story once about a witch named Baba Yaga, who had a house supported on chicken legs. It was eerily similar to the stilted house he was climbing up to.

When they entered the octagonal abode, the three children thought they had been blinded. It was dark at first, but the Baudelaires saw the moon shining through the roof and little flickers of lights flitting around, sometimes blinking out but reappearing across the room.

"Don't you love them. They're my fireflies," Elmira whispered. In the relative darkness, she reached, out of habit, and grabbed an empty metal lantern. She whistled, and the glowing specks flew into the empty vessel, illuminating the room.

It was a large library, filled with bookshelves on 4 of the 8 edges of the room. They weren't that tall, but there were still an abundance of books in the room. In the center of the wonderful area of reading and happiness was a mismatched sofa and armchair, with a glass coffee table in between them that matched neither.

"Klaus, I know you enjoy reading so you can sleep on the sofa in here. It folds out into a nice sized bed," Elmira said. "And Violet and Sunny, the leftmost room is yours. I put a few books in there, too. I dug out some of my favorites from when I was your age, Violet. And I found some fairy tales that one of you can read to Sunny."

"That sounds simply wonderful! Thank you, Ms Nettle," Violet smiled.

"Oh please, call me Aunt Elle. My own children have moved away long ago, and my grandchildren live so far from here that it's impractical for them to visit that often. Truth be told, I miss having young ones like you running around the house, Elmira sighed wistfully. "Now, get settled, and when you're ready, we can have a late night dinner with ice cream for dessert and a popsicle for Sunny. I'll help you with your bed, Klaus."

As the children finished taking in their new, wonderful surroundings, Elmira set out plates of spaghetti and a bowl of grapes for everyone. After eating, Klaus found a book on entomology he found interesting, and Violet read Sunny the tale of Cinderella, about a woman who is tracked down by her incredibly ineffective footwear. Elmira let loose the fireflies from the lantern above Klaus, and as the room fell into darkness, the world felt truly quiet for the first time in a long while.

The phrase "sleep like a baby" generally means that one goes to sleep very easily. This is odd as babies are known for waking up throughout the night, crying and screaming and begging for their mothers and fathers. In Sunny's case, sleeping like a baby meant getting no sleep, for, though she was young, there is no age requirement for being terrified of a terrible villain such as Count Olaf.

By the time the sun had risen, Violet awoke to the smell of eggs and toast and the feeling of unrest. Violet had had a nightmare where she was Cinderella and Count Olaf was her wicked stepfather. As you might know, the tale of Cinderella involves walking on easily breakable glass which, in and of itself is a nightmare, without even involving Count Olaf.

Klaus, meanwhile, had been woken up at the crack of dawn with light shining in from the sunroof and a firefly on his face. He tried to read a book, but his brain kept shifting to thoughts of the Quagmires and where they could be, and their horrendous captors, Count Olaf and Esmé Squalor. So after Elmira started cooking breakfast and Violet emerged from the room to the left of the library carrying a very tired Sunny, Klaus had many fears to worriedly jabber about, hoping his sisters could help him sort through his jumbled thoughts and rational worries.

"Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes, dears," Elmira yelled through the open kitchen door.

Klaus approached Violet, trying to explain how he was scared of Olaf tracking them down and about all the oddly specific frightsome things that could be happening to the Quagmires. Violet guided him to one of the old, comfortable armchairs and tried to soothe his nerves with rational arguments.

"Count Olaf won't come here," she assured. "Mr. Poe's fancy new car could barely make it through the marsh. Imagine Count Olaf's car trying to make it. His tires are worn bald and his engine stalls every mile."

"I guess it IS a bit ridiculous," Klaus laughed. "And he couldn't harm the Quagmires if he wanted their fortune." Sunny gave him a gentle bite to tell him that everything would be ok, and then she fell asleep.

I am warning you, dear readers, that this may sound like a happy moment. You can close this book and throw it into the ocean and believe that Mr. Poe found the Quagmires, our terrible villains were given appropriate punishment, and our three young heroes will spend their days with their Auntie Elle, reading and biting and building. For, unfortunately, Klaus and Sunny's completely rational fears were quelled as easily as one could change a tire or fix an engine on an old car.

Over omelettes and toast, Elmira asked the children various questions to get to know them a bit better. They were normal enough things such as "what is your favorite food", "do you like llamas", and "what would you do if a llama thought an unsuspecting author was its favorite food". However, once the food had been consumed and plates had been washed, Elmira asked a question that might be considered odd.

"Do you know how to whistle?"

None of the children had really thought about it until that point. Their mother could whistle. Their father could whistle. But after a few fruitless attempts, they realized that they could not whistle.

"I'll need to teach you then. It's imperative that you know" Elmira said.

"Why?" Violet asked.

"The fireflies, dear! You might need to see at night in the library, so learning how to get them to illuminate the room for you is useful " Elmira explained.

As the small group of minors and the elderly woman traveled into the library filled with fireflies to learn how to whistle, Klaus breathed a sigh of relief. Their guardian hadn't explained the word "imperative" to them, a word which he had known the meaning of since the third grade.

The morning merged into the afternoon and, soon enough, the Baudelaires could whistle as if they had been born doing it, and their whistles were cheerful up until the doorbell rang.

Bogus Bog was in the middle of nowhere, so someone randomly stopping by seemed unlikely. "It could be Mr. Poe!" the children thought hopefully. Mr. Poe by himself was not necessarily a good thing, but it was not a bad thing. But it couldn't be the mundane banker, as he would never check up on them, he was too busy. So, the Baudelaires came to their dreadful conclusion just as Elmira Nettle opened the door.

There were two people standing there, a man and a woman. The man had large, thick-framed glasses which covered his one eyebrow, and was wearing tall argyle socks underneath a pair of sandals to hide the tattoo on his ankle. He wore a pair of cargo shorts and a polo shirt that seemed to be two sizes too small.

The woman wore a pink poodle skirt with an ornate white top. Around her neck was a necklace with a familiar insignia. A beret rested on her head and overblown cat-eye glasses with no lenses. The wicked faces of the two "strangers" had haunted more nightmares than the young people cared to admit (or, in Sunny's case, even count to). The city's sixth most important financial advisor and the city's first most terrible person had arrived upon the doorstep of their small pocket of joy, and turned it inside out.

"Howdy!" Very-Much-Not-Count-Olaf said, in a bad Texan accent.  
  
"Hello!" his female counterpart, Very-Much-Not-Esmé-Squalor said, in an awkward southern drawl.

"Why, hello?" Elmira confusedly replied to the fully grown adults in bad dress-up. "Do I know you?"

"Can't say that you would. We're your new neighbors! I'm Quincy, and this is my girlfriend, Becky!" 'Quincy' introduced.

"There's no houses around for miles." Elmira stated, slightly more of a question than a statement.

"Not anymore there ain't!" 'Becky' said, pointing to a shoddy hut that was little more than a ramshackle stack of sticks. "We just wanted to drop in, and say that no matter what, we're right next door. No matter what."

Elmira slowly shut the door, bolted it, and slumped down into one of the out of place, unmatched chairs. "There's something... bad about them. I've seen them before. I KNOW them. It was so long ago I barely remember them. I- I'm not sure if I really do."

The children looked at each other and all began talking at once.  
"Well... that man is Count Olaf-"  
"THATS COUNT OLAF AND HIS WICKED ASSOCIATE ESMÉ SQUALOR-"  
" Ebbebbeghh rudu ergach nh!"

"Well, this all sounds quite grave. I think I know how to deal with this. We bake cookies," Elmira sighed. The children were bemused.

"I'm not sure if you understand how dangerous Count Olaf is. He-" Violet started.

"Believe me, I am well aware. I need you three to trust that I have a plan. But while we're baking, you're going to tell me EVERYTHING about the last time you found the Quagmires. I've had a few... unpleasant run ins with Olaf and once he finds an MO, he sticks to it. Now, come on, let's bake," Elmira spouted. The tonal whiplash left Klaus agape. Sunny was befuddled but sleepy, and Violet was happy that, for once, someone knew who Olaf and Esmé were. Cookie scent filled the air, and a rare sliver of hope filled everyone's hearts for just a brief, beautiful passing moment.

There is something about cold nights that give you a rush of invigoration. Unfortunately, the adrenaline of the moment seems to wear off when you most need it. As the odd comrades stood in front of the small hut, they began to get cold feet, a term which here does not refer to their legs succumbing to the chill of the night but rather refers to the fact that everyone in the party thought that what they were about to do was a bad idea.

"Endoop!" whispered Sunny, which meant "What we are about to do is a bad idea".

What they were about to do was, indeed, a bad idea. It was, unfortunately, an idea that ended up being fatal for Elmira Nettle. Right now, however, she was very much alive and knocking on the door of the tiny cabin. Quincy opened the door. Elmira held out the basket of cookies to the revolting man.

"To welcome you, new neighbor, we have made you some cookies," she said. While Quincy was distracted by the baked goods, the Baudelaires craned their necks to try to see if anything or anyone was hidden inside, and, unfortunately, were sorely disappointed.

"Now, we must get going, the children have to get to bed early" Elmira finished, giving Violet a little wink. The four hurried away through the cold, shivering and a bit teary-eyed from disappointment. They had no idea where the Quagmires could be and only knew one place where they couldn't.

After explaining the nothingness they saw to their guardian, they still didn't have any hint of a new plan and had many fewer cookies. Everyone was discouraged. Even the fireflies seemed to fly lower than their normal flight pattern.

The night drew on drearily. Rain patterned on the glass sunroof. Klaus sat on his makeshift bed, disinterestedly reading a book on constellations. The rain pounded harder. Klaus normally liked rainy weather, but tonight the rain reminded him of his tears. The rain pounded harder still, almost as it would shatter the glass with the sheer force of the rain.

Except-

Except the pounding felt a bit too human to just be the rain.

The dark silhouette of Duncan Quagmire was barely visible against the dark and drizzly sky. Or perhaps it was his sister, Isadora. One could hardly tell the two apart if one were standing right next to them, much less if they were in the dark, frantically clinging to a slippery glass sunroof.

Klaus furiously banged on Elmira's door furiously. "ELMIRA ONE OF THE QUAGMIRES IS ON THE ROOF" he yelled. The ruckus alerted Violet and Sunny, as Elmira emerged to shush Klaus.

"We mustn't be too loud. If Olaf knows that one of the Quagmires has escaped, something terrible will happen," Elmira warned, heading to inspect the situation. "Violet, do you have any ideas?"

She tied her hair up with her trusty ribbon and began to think. "Klaus, find a ladder," she ordered. He dashed off to find one. Violet motioned for the figure to move away from the center of the ceiling, and grabbed a jug of milk from the fridge. She stood on the ladder and reached out as far as she could. "Everybody stand back!" she shouted.

Some irritating people like to use the phrase "don't cry over spilled milk". However, even the most annoying of people would start to tear up at the shower of glass and lactose raining around the milk-throwing maiden. And, through the hole in the ceiling, one sopping wet Isadora Quagmire emerged.

Milk can be a very dangerous thing. Unpasteurized milk, for instance, can carry bacteria. A gallon of milk is quite large and quite heavy and very painful if it is dropped on an unsuspecting foot. Once, I was chased down by a ravenous cow whilst wearing an outfit that mimicked the local grass patterns and had to hide in a remote convenience store.

Broken glass, while also dangerous, is a lot more outwardly offensive and clear in its malicious intent. The two combined make a malevolent recipe for ice cream with broken glass in it, and poor Isadora Quagmire was lying right in the middle of it.

"Isadora!" Violet gasped. Rain was pouring through the broken glass and the wind outside was was whistling.

"What's going on?" Klaus shouted, half a question, half a plea. It was a good question.

Isadora slowly climbed to her feet, soaking and miserable. "We were under the house," she sighed. "I managed to get out but that henchperson that looks like neither a man nor a woman was watching the front door so I figured that this would be the next best way to get your attention."

As if on cue a rap on the door rang out through the house. The entire party realized their mistake all at once, for adrenaline can often erase such background noises like the sound of shattering glass as a gallon of milk goes sailing through a sunroof.

"Open up, it's your new neighbors," a female voice said.  
  
"Shut up, Esmé. They're already on to us," Olaf said. "There's no need for the formalities."

As the children tried to hide Isadora in a closet, the door burst down.

"Urdub" Sunny whispered, which roughly translates to "oh no". "Oh no" is really the only reasonable reaction in this circumstance, for as Esmé and Olaf entered the chaos-strewn room everything fell silent. Esmé was wearing a hat in the shape of a large toad and was brandishing a rudimentary spear. Olaf had no weapon, but his eyes shone like they did when he knew he would already win.

If you have not already abandoned this tale, I beg of you to do so. No person deserves to be exposed to the gruesome events to follow, especially not little Sunny Baudelaire who had to witness Elmira Nettle slip on the milk that would ultimately be her undoing.

The fall itself was not fatal. However, Olaf seized the moment of confusion and grabbed a large shard of glass. The fiendish man stabbed Elmira in the gut, the aftermath creating a sickly pink mixture of milk and blood that could only be appealing to a vampire.

Running is a very hard thing to do, especially when you are carrying a baby, have just fallen through a large pane of glass, or are in a general state of shock and confusion. But fear is a powerful force, and, though the devilish duo were hot on their heels, the assortment of orphans arrived at the open doorway. And as his sisters and friend narrowly escaped, Klaus opened the lantern, leaving the room in darkness, and slammed the door behind him.

There are some words that people say that I cannot and will not repeat, and that generally mean some quite unpleasant things. Count Olaf and Esmé Squalor said many of these words that started with every letter of the English alphabet and probably some from the Greek and Russian alphabets as well. They were said very loudly and aggressively, and added a bit more stress to the already shocked and rushed children.

Duncan Quagmire was under a house, a sentence that I am sorry I have to say and hoping that I never have to say again. He was under a house and could not get out. He was in a cage, similar to that which the two triplets had been contained in at the bottom of a tall, dark, ersatz elevator shaft. It was barely large enough to contain two people.

Violet started to think of an invention to pry open the bars of the cage. But there were so few materials to work with, and steel is very hard to bend. Thankfully, the youngest Baudelaire had her own plans. Sunny was quite a strong baby. She could bite through almost anything, including the concrete walls of a cold and desolate elevator shaft with no elevator. But everyone, including little Sunny herself, was astounded when she began to bend the thick steel bars of Duncan's cage. There was no time to praise the terrific teething toddler, as the profanities from inside the house had suddenly stopped. There were only two possible explanations: Esmé Squalor and Count Olaf had suddenly dropped dead and all the orphans' problems were solved, or that the villainous adults had found a way to escape the dark room.

I highly encourage you to stop reading, close this book, and throw it into the nearest large body of water, for, though I dislike the destruction of books, I dislike the sad truths I am going to put down more. You could spend your entire life believing that all the unfortunate events that the children had been through had come to a close. Sadly, I do have to say that Count Olaf and Esmé Squalor managed to stumble into the correct door and open it.

Many girls, when they are young, have a "horse" phase. Violet Baudelaire, however, had a "car" phase. When she was about seven, Violet wanted to learn everything about cars. And she did, just short of driving one. So, when she and her fellow associates dashed towards Olaf's car and tackled his large henchperson that looked like neither a man nor a woman out of it, Violet took the driver's seat.

"Don't count your chickens before they hatch" is a saying that means "don't depend on something before it happens". For instance, if you bought a lottery ticket and said you were going to win, you would be counting your chickens before they hatch because very few people ever win the lottery. Hence, the Baudelaires, although silently, counted their chickens before they hatched when they assumed they would get away from Olaf and live, if not happily ever after, at least live ever after.

The engine sputtered and roared to life, and Violet felt the wheels spin under her. The tires floundered for a second in the marshland before finally grabbing ahold of the soggy terrain. They could finally escape from all the misery and murder that had befallen them in their miserable lives.

If you are planning to continue reading from this point, take a second and reevaluate. If you are happy, you should not read and let these horrid affairs sully your mood. If you are unhappy, I also recommend leaving, seeing as this would only dampen your spirits even further. There is really no circumstance in which one should continue reading this sorry tale. Even I am typing this very sentence with my eyes closed.

Spears are one of the oldest weapons that man has used. They can hunt mammoths, boars, and now the mighty beast that is the automobile. Esme Gigi Genevieve Squalor threw the large spear she was carrying at the car and it punctured a tire and got stuck in the wheel. The car refused to move forward. The Quagmires hopped out of the back seat and tried to remove the large stick of wood, but just as they got it unlodged, Olaf and Esme grabbed the two triplets and hoofed it, a phrase which here means "ran as fast as they could while each carrying a child."

Violet thought up a plan, and, despite Klaus' protests, zoomed away from the scene. She wasn't abandoning their friends, however. Violet tried to turn the car around and swerve into their villainous former "defenders", hopefully incapacitating them long enough to escape.

Reading is not reality. You might know the book story of a boy who knows magic and attends a school with many nice and helpful adults. This is obviously fiction because nice and helpful adults is an oxymoron, they simply cannot exist, or, if they do, die of easily preventable villainy. Violet Baudelaire had read many books about cars and driven go-karts occasionally, but had never really driven a car before. The uneven and unstable ground didn't help, as it so rarely does. Hence, mere moments from possible salvation, the car flipped over in a nasty wreck.

Cars were not made to be flipped. Very few things are like pancakes and gymnasts in that sense. The car crumpled and windows shattered. Klaus shielded Sunny and Violet shielded Klaus, but the car crashed, nevertheless.

By the time the Baudelaires could maneuver their way out of the upside-down car with any margin of safety, the Quagmires were long gone. There was only one figure standing at the scene, a man in a trench coat with his face covered. He approached the Baudelaires.

"Hello, Baudelaires," he said, approaching slowly.

"Who are you?" Violet asked "And how do you know who we are, more importantly."

The man seemed to sigh. "Elmira Nettle is... no WAS my mother. I came to visit and stumbled upon the body. She raved about you three on the phone, you know."

"Shouldn't we call the police?" Klaus asked, cradling Sunny.

"Can't. No phone. Come with me, please." The stranger gestured to a bright yellow taxi.

The Baudelaires glanced at each other. This man was getting more and more suspicious by the second. Still, he was only one person, and they didn't have any other way to get anywhere. Reluctantly, they got in the taxi.

The ride to the bank was uneventful. Soon enough, the Baudelaires were sitting on the steps of Mulctuary Money Management while the man used a pay phone. He opened his car door. "I must go to meet the police now. Farewell, children, the bank should open in a few minutes."

The bank did, in fact, open in a few minutes, and Mr. Poe stumbled upon them.

"Children, what are you doing here? Why aren't you with your guardian?" Mr. Poe asked.

"She's dead," Klaus replied.

"What?"

"Our guardian was murdered by Count Olaf. Again."  
  
"Again?!" Mr. Poe cried, incredulously. "But how are you back here?"

"One of her children drove us back. He was just here, in a taxi." Violet said.

Mr. Poe looked concerned. "Children... Elmira Nettle has had no children. That's why she adopted you. Now, I'm looking into this program called 'It takes a village to raise a child'..."

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! This is my first public fic, first fic on AO3, you know the drill. Umm... I hope you all enjoyed!


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